Musings of a Baby Boomer….

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I’ll Have My People Call Your People

You’ve heard the phrase she knows just enough to be dangerous, haven’t you? If you were to google that phrase, I’m pretty sure my photo would appear. I am the face for the concept of knowing just enough to be dangerous, at least when it comes to technology.

It’s true that I am a blogger. It’s also true that it is well-known in my family that I am a texter. It’s my favorite way to communicate. My daughter-in-law Jll always says that she can count on me answering a text toot sweet. I have a laptop, an iPad, a smart phone, and I can manage to use the necessary remote controls to get onto Netflix and Amazon Video on two different smart televisions. I use Pinterest and Facebook daily. (God help me when Facebook goes away only to be replaced by something cooler. I’m already hearing rumblings that Facebook is destined to go the way of My Space before we know it.)

And that’s it. That’s what I know. When it comes to my blog, someone else created it and showed me how to post copy and photos. So I can post copy and photos. I can’t figure out how to get a plug-in to make recipes handy and printable. I have no clue as to how to make my blog pinnable on Pinterest. Instagram and Twitter are mysteries to me despite the fact that I have accounts for both. There is an easy-peazy way to post the blog on Facebook, but that skill eludes me; therefore, I just copy and paste every day.

A few years ago, I got a notion to start having advertising on my blog. My audience, while loyal and AWESOME, are still relatively few in number. Relative to the Pioneer Woman, for example. While she likely gets thousands upon thousands of hits each day, I get between 60 and 100. (And I love each and every hit, though I suspect my sisters and brother account for a third of them each day.) So, at the time, it felt premature to begin advertising to the people who are really my friends, but I nevertheless began preparation for that “some day” possibility by having my blog hosted by another entity. Did I figure that out myself? Hell, no. Someone smarter than me told me that in order to have advertising, you have to be hosted off site.

The problem was, well, see above. For all intents and purposes, I am clueless as to the technology of blogs. So I was never able to actually MOVE my blog over to the host. The result is that for the past four or five years, I have been paying a company to host a blog that they didn’t actually host. This year, when I got my bill, I said, “Enough is enough!”

So yesterday morning, I called up Inmotion Hosting and told them, “Enough is enough.” I spoke to a young man named Aaron. I explained what I wanted to do, but verbalized my fear that somehow, by ending my relationship with them, my blog site would vanish completely.

Much to my chagrin, Aaron, who is probably young enough to date my eldest granddaughter (but better not try), didn’t discount this possibility. He told me what I needed to do to preclude this from happening. He said, “Kristine, blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blobbity blah, and if you do that, you’ll be fine.”

I’m sure you understand that he didn’t actually say blobbity blobbity. But he might as well have, given the extent to which I understood what he was telling me to do. Meanwhile, Bill – who, while not a technical genius, at least might have understood a few of the blobbities – was in the garage underneath his car and unavailable for comment.

“STOP,” I literally raised my voice to Aaron. “You have to understand that I know absolutely nothing about technology. I am a writer, period. I am also old. I am an old writer. I don’t understand one thing that you just told me to do.”

My friends, I tell you again, Aaron was so sweet and polite. I know he was picturing his little elderly great-grandmother with her white hair tied in a bun as he spoke to me.

“Here’s what I’ll do, Kristine,” he said. “I will check right now to see if your blog is hosted by WordPress. If it is, I am confident that it will not go away if we discontinue serving you. In the meantime, I am going to get my tech people to send you a link. You will simply need to click on this link and it will back up your entire blog.”

Here’s my takeaway from that conversation: Despite the fact that he could date my granddaughter (but he better not), he has his tech people. I always wanted to have people. I never had people. I was always the people.

So I now have a link that his people dutifully sent to me. At some point I will get brave enough to actually click on the link. My computer may actually blow up and my blog may go away forever. If Nana’s Whimsies goes away, don’t worry about me. Aaron said I can call him back.

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5 thoughts on “I’ll Have My People Call Your People”

The best thing about my tech area at work is they can take over my computer. After a long hold to get through to someone and then a 30 second conversation with me explaining what is going on, (and the tech rolling his eyes no doubt) they ask me for permission to take over. Oh, the conversations they must have at dinner about me.

Well, I am a loyal fan despite the fact that I don’t always post comments. Ive had some health challenges the last 6 months, so a few things have taken a backseat. But I read your blog everyday (hate it when you go on vaca and don’t post) and I repeat your antics to my friends and family. My husband is familiar with “the woman blogger who lives in CO”.

As usual this post made me smile! I feel the same about technology – just to chicken to admit!